


The World Unwraps Itself to You, Again and Again

by Nike_SGA



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017), The Worst Witch - All Media Types
Genre: But I can technically still use the tag, F/F, I don't even know guys, Non-magical AU, Or 'The One Where They're All in Wicked', The Musical Theatre AU noone asked for, Two witches in love, Useless Lesbians, blink-and-you-miss-it Hubblestar, cw: discussion of coming out, fluff and nonsense, is this technically Gelphie fic?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-07 01:16:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18400169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nike_SGA/pseuds/Nike_SGA
Summary: 'Hecate digs her nails into her palms and fumes silently as Ada crosses over to the door, and turns back before she leaves. She ducks her head and regards Hecate over the top of her spectacles in a way that makes her feel very much like a recalcitrant ten-year old standing in front of her school headmistress.“Pippa Pentangle is your new Glinda for the next two months,” Ada declares with finality, “and you’re just going to have to deal with it.”’***Hecate Hardbroom is a respected theatre actress. Pippa Pentangle is a beloved popstar. Ada is exasperated. Everyone is in ‘Wicked.’ What’s the worst that could happen?





	The World Unwraps Itself to You, Again and Again

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really have an explanation folks. I've not had a lot of sleep the past couple of days?
> 
> This fic is also featured on Episode 8 of the femslash-podfic-podcast on tumblr (or wherever you find your podcasts!)

"Or is it just that the world unwraps itself to you, again and again, as soon as you are ready to see it anew?" - Gregory Maguire,  _Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West_

* * *

 

  
“But she’s a _popstar_ ,” Hecate practically wails, sounding petulant even to her own ears, but determined to front it out nevertheless. Ada sighs loudly, and Hecate can tell it’s taking all of the other woman’s considerable patience not to roll her eyes so hard they fall out of her head.

 

“Yes, and it’s eight weeks. You’ll live,” Ada replies curtly, and folds her arms. “It’ll get bums on seats.”

 

“We’re not exactly struggling!”

 

“That’s not the point _._ ”

 

“What _is_ the point?”

 

“The _point_ ,” Ada retorts, “is that her management and the theatre have decided it’s a good idea, and we have to go along with it whether _you_ like it or not.”

 

“But-”

 

“ _Hecate._ ” Her patience finally up, Ada stands from the chair she had commandeered in Hecate’s dressing room and squares her jaw. “In two weeks, Anna’ll be off with the tour, so you’ve got a fortnight to rehearse with this girl in between shows. She’s already been running the part with a coach, she just needs to get her blocking up to speed, make sure she doesn’t get vertigo going up in the bloody bubble, and for the two of you to get used to one another.”

 

Hecate’s not ready to let go quite yet: “I don’t understand why we can’t get a proper actress-”

 

“She _is_ a proper actress,” Ada scolds, in a voice that suggests if certain people not a million miles from here also want to continue being a proper actress, in this show anyway, they had better stop arguing right now. “She’s been on stage before. And she’s popular, and it’s already been announced, and that, my dear, is an end to it.”

 

Hecate digs her nails into her palms and fumes silently as Ada crosses over to the door, and turns back before she leaves. She ducks her head and regards Hecate over the top of her spectacles in a way that makes her feel very much like a recalcitrant ten-year old standing in front of her school headmistress.

 

“Pippa Pentangle is your new Glinda for the next two months,” Ada declares with finality, “and you’re just going to have to deal with it.”

 

She closes the door firmly behind her.

 

***

 

“She went to Mountview, you know,” Dimity says casually, flipping through something on her clipboard as she lounges against the wall in the rehearsal room while they wait for the arrival of their newest cast member. She’s late. Of course, she’s late, Hecate seethes. She’s probably used to other people’s schedules revolving around her every whim. Well, she’s in for shock here, then, she resolves irritably. The stage manager eyes her across the room, clearly taking in her ramrod posture and aggravated frown.

 

“I just mean,” she continues idly, unperturbed by Hecate’s silence, “that she is _properly_ trained, and all that. I thought that’d be important to you. It’s not like they just grabbed her off _Britain’s Got Talent_ and shoved her into the West End.” She glances at Hecate’s stony face and mutters, “Not that there’s anything necessarily wrong with that,” under her breath. Hecate glowers at her.

 

“Why are you even here?” Hecate snaps, sure Dimity has something more important she could be doing back at the Apollo Vic. Dimity feigns innocence.

 

“Just introducing myself while I’ve got a minute.”

 

Hecate peers suspiciously at her, and then groans. “Oh, god. You’re a _fan._ ”

 

“I like her music! So what?” Dimity counters defensively, “And I’m looking forward to seeing what she’s like in the part!” Hecate huffs at her, and turns back towards the piano. “You were going to have to get used to someone else eventually anyway,” she throws at her back, and Hecate scowls.

 

It’s just, she _likes_ her current Galinda, that’s all. Well, no, not _likes_ exactly - Anna is just as sweet and blonde and chirpy as she can reasonably stand - but she is also professional, and hard-working, and she Hecate get along fine together, which isn’t always a guarantee with Hecate and her fellow performers. It was why it had been such a wrench when she announced she was going with the touring cast this season. Hecate remembered standing stiffly as Anna had flung her arms around her neck and begged her not to look so much like she had just kicked her cat. “I’m sorry, Hec!” she had lamented, “I’m sure you’ll like whoever they get in just fine!”

 

 _Ha_ , Hecate thinks, peevishly.

 

Just then the door flies open and a tumult of pink and blonde and perfume and _pink_ whirls into the room, oversized sunglasses shoved to the top of her head. “I’m so sorry!”, the woman exclaims breathily. “The traffic was bloody awful! I knew I should have just jumped on the underground but they’re always so funny about it and you know what it’s like trying to get a taxi through Westminster at this time in the morning-” She comes to an abrupt halt in front of Hecate and pushes the sleeves of her soft wool jumper up her arms before offering her a hand. “Pippa Pentangle. Lovely to meet you.”

 

Hecate stares.

 

She’s seen pictures of Pippa, naturally, in the papers and on the front of magazines, and has caught her on _This Morning_ or _Graham Norton,_ smiling and laughing and promoting whatever new single she has out with an alluring charm that Hecate finds, frankly, insufferable. She’s all carefully coiffed hair and tight dresses and lashes and heels, sitting next to an admiring Philip Schofield or James McAvoy, beaming graciously at the audience and demurely fielding questions about her love life or her diet or, occasionally, her music.

 

That’s not who’s standing blinking warmly up at Hecate now, though ( _and she’s shorter than she looks on TV,_ she thinks, dazedly), with a wide, winsome smile on her outrageously pretty face. Pippa’s honeysuckle hair is pulled back into a haphazard ponytail, and she’s bare-faced and glowing, wearing an oversized, bright pink jumper with faded denim leggings and converse, a tote bag hanging lopsidedly off one shoulder. Hecate is frozen to the spot, heart hammering suddenly, and not-quite unpleasantly, in her chest, palms itching where she still has her fists balled at her side. Her throat is too dry to formulate a reply to Pippa’s greeting as she gapes at her and her brain tries to remember how to breathe. Pippa’s expression falters slightly, unsure what to make of Hecate’s apparent paralysis, and she drops her hand.

 

“Ah, good, you found us,” Ada hustles into the room, a session pianist on her heels, and grins cheerfully at the pair of them. “You’ve met Hecate, then, Pippa?”

 

Ada’s voice snaps Hecate out of whatever stupor she had fallen into, and she wrenches her gaze from Pippa’s face and instinctively wraps her arms around her middle, feeling suddenly tall and gangly and terribly uncoordinated. She nods officiously in her general direction, and grates out “Miss Pentangle.”

 

“Well, I must say, you do look rather well together, so that’s a start!” Ada comments brightly, stepping around and ushering them towards the piano. Hecate startles, all too aware of the dark figure she cuts, dressed entirely in black - long vest top, long cardigan, long leggings over long legs - and her raven hair scraped back into a tight knot at the crown of her head. She scuffs the toe of her Doc Martens on the floor and surreptitiously casts her eye over the bright form of Pippa next to her.

 

“We’ll not overdo it today,” Ada informs them, as she settles in a chair and pulls out her notepad. Let’s just get warmed up, and we’ll run the first Shiz university scene from the top, and _Popular_ , and we’ll maybe have a go at _For Good_ to see where we might need to work on harmonising you, and we’ll really get into it tomorrow. Sound good? Good.” And with that, the rehearsal begins, and Hecate disappears into Elphaba Thropp, where she won’t have to sit and stew on what the hell just happened for at least another couple of hours. Or so she hopes.

 

***

 

Pippa turns out to be rather good after all. _No,_  Hecate thinks grudgingly, Pippa turns out to be _very, very_ good, and it’s clear from the off that she’s taking the role seriously and has already put an awful lot of work in. She’s a natural actress and a talented singer under all that abysmal contemporary autotune, and there’s an instant chemistry between them that Hecate has always had to work at before, even with Anna, which makes running through the familiar scenes without her usual counterpart far less jarring than she expected. By the end Ada is beaming happily, and even Dimity looks impressed.

 

“Lovely!” Ada declares, as they gather up music and coats and bags in preparation to depart. “Well done, both of you. We’ll start running everything from Act One tomorrow. Hecate’s on tonight, Pippa; you’re more than welcome to come to the theatre and we’ll pop you in on a comp in the stalls so you can get an idea of the production as a whole!” Hecate bristles at the idea that she’s somehow being put on show for Pippa’s _approval_ , and is about to open her mouth to say something - god knows what - when Pippa beats her to it:

 

“Thank you, Ada, but actually, I snuck in last week to see her. See it,” she corrects hastily. “And I saw it in May, last year.” Hecate frowns slightly. May last year was when she had taken over the role from Narcissus Nightshade. “But I wouldn’t mind coming and hanging about backstage, if that’s alright? Just to get the feel of things, as long as I’m not in the way?”

 

“Of course!” Ada says, magnanimously. “Just come by the Stage Door about half five. Hecate’s normally there early anyway, getting greened-up.” Her eyes twinkle at Hecate behind her glasses. “She can show you around a bit.” The protest dies on Hecate’s lips as Pippa smiles at her.

 

Ada bustles off ahead with Dimity, chatting animatedly about something or the other, and Hecate slows her pace in the hope that Pippa will carry on out of the building on her own, but instead she matches Hecate’s gait and they amble along in silence for a few moments.

 

“I’m really looking forward to this,” Pippa comments eventually, glancing at Hecate through her lashes. “It’s been ages since I’ve done any musical theatre.” Hecate raises a non-committal eyebrow, not trusting herself to speak. She feels edgy and strangely anxious, alone with this woman she’s known for three hours but know _of_ for years, and she doesn’t get star-struck, it’s hardly that, not in her line of work. But there’s something about Pippa that makes her skin prickle with awareness, and her ears hot, and she doesn’t know what it is.

 

 _Bollocks you don’t,_ a voice in her heads says gleefully. Hecate ignores it.

 

“Actually, I-” Pippa begins, and then cuts herself off. Hecate looks at her questioningly, and she shrugs, quiet until they reach the glass doors at the front of the studio. “I suppose I’ll see you later, then,” Pippa says, and hovers for a moment, obviously uncertain if she should try and shake Hecate’s hand again or drop a kiss on her cheek in the time-honoured luvvie _adieu_. She eventually just sticks her preposterous sunglasses over her eyes and moves to push open the door. “Bye, then.” Hecate watches her duck out into the stream of people passing on the road and be carried away up the street.

 

“Bye,” she answers, to the empty foyer.

 

***

 

She’s not _trying_ to be snippy and abrasive, she’s really not, but the longer these rehearsals with Pippa go on, the longer Hecate finds herself falling off-balance, unmoored by Pippa’s clear voice and easy smile and dynamic stage presence. The cast adores her, and she picks up her blocking quickly, and she fits herself to Hecate’s rhythms with little prompting. She demonstrates an enviable comic-timing alongside her more dramatic abilities, and the first time she whirls Glinda’s ridiculous wand threateningly at Hecate before their second-act fight, Hecate bursts out laughing and startles everyone in the rehearsal room, including herself.

 

But she _does_ snap at Pippa, and sighs loudly when they have to re-run something because she’s been slightly off her mark, and scowls if she flubs a line. By the end of the first week, they’re heading for a blazing row, Hecate can feel it, and she takes a deep swig from her water bottle as they both stalk away from the chorus after their fourth rehearsal of _Feeling_ this afternoon. The dancers regard them warily from where they flop down on the floor to mutter mutinously amongst themselves. It was Hecate who fumbled it this time, moving downstage at the wrong point despite having performed this choreography literally hundreds of time, and she’s furious and mortified and she glowers at Pippa, who’s busy pulling her sweaty hair into a loose bun at the nape of her neck. Pippa glares right back.

 

“Don’t look at me,” she nips, prissily. “I wasn’t the one who nearly tripped up the whole back line this time.”

 

“You put me off,” Hecate counters churlishly.

 

“ _How?!”_ Pippa exclaims, voice rising in indignation.

 

 _You existed while looking like that,_ Hecate does not say, scowling at Pippa’s tight dance leggings and long-sleeved ballet crop-top. Pink, naturally. She sulks silently instead

 

“Right!” Imogen, the dance captain, runs her fingers through her blonde pixie-cut, and gestures the ensemble back on their feet. “Let’s do it again. Just focus on the steps, we’ll worry about the acting when we’ve got those down.”

 

“This song,” Pippa retorts, slamming her own water bottle back down on top of the piano and making Hecate wince, “does not require much acting.” She marches back to the front of the chorus and folds her arms while she narrows her eyes challengingly at Hecate. Hecate leaves as much distance between them as she thinks she can get away with, and directs a malevolent expression towards Imogen, who sighs.

 

“Let’s use that energy,” she proclaims sardonically, and nods at the pianist as she takes up her own position behind Pippa. “And just try and get through the bloody number before I murder one or both of you.” The pianist raises his hands and looks expectantly at them.

 

“ _Dearingest, Darlingest Mumsie and Popsicle.”_

 

_“My dear father…”_

 

_***_

 

Hecate slinks into wardrobe a couple of days before her last performance with her current co-lead, searching for the costume supervisor. She’d caught her Act Two dress on a bit of wayward scenery last night, and she wanted to make sure Julie had caught the threads - and more importantly that Hecate wasn’t liable to do the ludicrously expensive gown any serious damage - before she puts it on during tonight’s interval. She can hear voices inside the room, and she slips through the door quietly, and for the second time in as many weeks finds herself rendered utterly speechless and immobile by the sight of Pippa Pentangle.

 

She’s wearing Glinda’s bubble ballgown, shoulders bare and slender waist exaggerated by the tight, glittering bodice. The delicate, overlapping petals of the full skirt extend around her, light and airy, and shining prettily even in the harsh overhead lighting. The baby blue of the dress highlights her lightly-bronzed skin and her golden hair, caught up in a loose chignon to keep it out of the way, and she has a soft, far-away smile on her face as she watches in the full-length mirror as Julie dexterously slides a pin into the hem where she’s fitting it to her. She looks like a princess, Hecate thinks for moment, and then almost trips over her own feet as the thought brings her crashing back to reality.

 

_What the hell is wrong with her._

 

“Oh, hello you,” Julie greets her from near the floor, fabric sliding through her fingers as she fixes and alters. “Gimme a sec, we’re nearly done here.”

 

Hecate finally manages to gulp in some air, and tears her gaze away from the tableau in front of her. Unfortunately, this means she catches Pippa’s curious brown eyes in the mirror, her lips slightly parted, and Hecate stumbles backwards as she babbles an excuse for why she’ll come back later, and retreats to hide in her dressing room until it’s time to start getting ready. Once she’s closed her door safely behind her, she slides into a chair and lets her forehead drop down to the cool wood of her dressing table. She thumps it off the surface once more for good measure, and closes her eyes.

 

***

 

Anna does her best Chenoweth and weeps and cracks through their last rendition of _For Good_ , a song, Hecate reflects drily, that she’ll be singing again in Manchester in two months with a different Elphie holding her hands. She hugs Hecate tightly at their walkdown, and tearfully accepts the luxurious bouquet of flowers Egbert presents her, sweeping a low bow with his grey and silver top hat, while on Hecate’s other side Nathaniel whistles and claps obnoxiously loudly in her ear.

 

Pippa joins them for a drink in the theatre bar after the show, which the staff have agreed to let them have for an extra hour for a private farewell party, and she and Hecate avoid one another lest they start bickering again. She seems a little uncomfortable at first, until Anna bursts into a fresh round of tears and throws her arms around her and tells her to have a _wonderful_ time, and she’ll be just _fabulous_ , and she will look after Hecate, won’t she, because she’s not nearly as grumpy and miserable as she makes out. The rest of the cast howl with laughter until Algie, the old goat, who’s managed to down three double gins already, holds up a glass and cries “the queen is dead, long live the queen!”, and Anna shrieks and laughs, sobs and swats affectionately at him as he pulls both her and Pippa into a effusive hug.

 

Hecate has half a glass of terrible red wine, elbows her way through the throng to Anna so she can clasp her hand and wish her luck (and she gets yet _another_ hug for her trouble), and then she tries to make as unobtrusive an exit as possible, sneaking off down the back staircase to the Stage Door. She only gets about halfway before Pippa calls on her to wait up, and Hecate bites the inside of her cheek, but stops anyway.

 

“I didn’t want to stay too long,” she explains as they make their way towards the door. “It’s Anna’s party and I didn’t want to intrude.” Hecate makes an indistinct noise, pausing to sign out and wish the woman on duty goodnight, and then they’re out into the still-warm air of the night and the bustle of Wilton Road, busy even at this late hour. There’s a moment of awkwardness, as they stand on the pavement not looking at each other, and Pippa tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear, hunching her shoulders slightly.

 

“Well, I suppose that’ll be us tomorrow then,” she says, attempting to sound off-hand and failing spectacularly. Pippa will be debuting in Saturday night’s performance, while the swing cast take the matinee; Esme, who normally plays Nessarose - and who is twenty-six and inordinately talented and nipping at Hecate’s heels already - was bubbling with anticipation tonight about getting into the coveted pointy hat.

 

“I suppose so.”

 

Pippa wrings her hands together, and seems to want to say something else, but instead watches an elderly couple stroll obliviously past, smiling a little at them. Hecate pulls her coat tighter around her despite the fact that it’s not even remotely cold, and tries to think of something to say that’s more polite than simply turning on her heel and wandering off towards the tube station. Small talk has never been her forté, and small talk with Pippa just seems to lead to big arguments.  

 

“Are you looking forward to it?”

 

Pippa’s focuses her attention on Hecate again, and she seems to have said the right thing quite by accident, because Pippa beams unexpectedly at her and her eyes crinkle at the edges. “Oh, absolutely. I can’t wait. It’s a dream for me.” Hecate nods, and thinking that’s that, she opens her mouth to wish Pippa a good evening.

 

“Actually, I might not have said it already, but I’ve really been looking forward to working with you,” Pippa says in a rush, with a forced sort of brightness, under which Hecate can detect a hint of nerves. And what’s _that_ about, she thinks; she’s never been able to _read people_. The subtleties of subtext are a constant source of frustration for her, and she looks over at Pippa sharply. Pippa laughs, self-conscious. “I’m a big fan of yours. Have been since I saw you in _Three Tall Women_ at the Wyndham.”

 

“That was...that was nearly ten years ago,” Hecate replies, caught entirely off guard. She had been twenty-four, already considered one of the most accomplished theatre actresses of her generation, and well on the way to her first Olivier.

 

“Mm-hm,” Pippa acknowledges simply. “And Regina, in _The Little Foxes_. And then I realised you did musicals when you did _Evita_ a few years back. I thought it was extraordinary. I really wanted to act, when I started all this. Didn’t really turn out that way.”

 

Hecate is flabbergasted, and regards Pippa with large, bewildered eyes. “But you...”

 

Pippa gazes at her warily, obviously prepared for some sort of incoming criticism, questioning her intrinsic talents, or her public image, or her carefully managed mainstream music career. All things, Hecate realises with an unpleasant lurch, that she had already done in her dressing room with Ada before she’d even set eyes on this woman, and an outward attitude she has done virtually nothing to redress in these past two weeks.

 

“You’ve done well for yourself,” she finishes weakly, and Pippa shrugs a little defiantly.

 

“Yes, and don’t get me wrong, it’s amazing. I love what I do. I’ve met so many wonderful people, and been places I couldn’t even have imagined growing up. I’m terribly gratefully and terribly proud of it. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say I envy you. I wanted to be like you, taking on strong, serious roles about women and society. That’s something I could have been proud of, too.”

 

And Hecate reels at Pippa Pentangle - _Pippa Pentangle -_ wildly successful and cherished by millions and loved everywhere she goes, wanting to be more like Hecate, who is forever falling out with her co-stars and occasionally gets recognised on the tube by someone too scared to ask for her autograph.

 

Pippa laughs then, airy and a little embarrassed, “Well, now that I’ve made myself sound like a total stalker, I suppose I’ll see you tomorrow,” she declares, faux-flippantly, and she gives Hecate a tight smile and a wave, and melts away into the London crowd.

 

Hecate stands, adrift, and watches her as she goes.

 

***

 

Hecate lurks outside Pippa’s dressing room the next night after she’s been mic’d up, and lets one green hand hover above the wood for nearly a full minute before she steels herself and knocks. She hears the faint “Come in!” through the door, and tentatively pokes her head around the frame. “Just wanted to say break a leg,” she begins, and the draws her brows together in concern. “Are you alright?”

 

“Yup,” Pippa replies unconvincingly from against the wall, where she’s leaning her head back against the plaster in a way that would send the wig mistress into apoplexy if she could see her, her eyes screwed shut. “Nope. Terrified.”

 

Hecate wavers in the doorway cluelessly. “Really? You’ve played to crowds ten times the size of this one.”

 

“Not the same,” Pippa grinds out, and Hecate is forced to agree. Standing behind a microphone with a band and singing out songs you’ve written yourself to the unfathomable darkness of a stadium filled with fans is probably not the same as stepping out, in character, to a sold-out West End house, half of whom are here to rabidly support you, and half who are probably casually rooting for you to fall off stage.

 

“Um,” she offers, helpfully.

 

“Do you still get nervous?” Pippa asks abruptly, still crushing her ringlets against the cold wall.

 

“God, yes,” Hecate answers immediately, and Pippa cracks one eye open to look at her. “If you’re not a bit nervous, you’re doing it wrong,” she continues, parroting a phrase her first acting teacher had drummed into her from an early age. Pippa continues to regard her hawkishly from the right. “This isn’t your first time in theatre either, though…”

 

“I knooow,” Pippa groans, “But I’ve never been in something this...big. Or with so much riding on it. If I go out there and make a total tit of myself-”

 

“Then you’ll still be Pippa Pentangle in the morning,” Hecate shrugs, not entirely certain where this new, vaguely supportive attitude is coming from, until she remembers Pippa standing in front of her last night, vulnerable and open in a way Hecate still can’t really comprehend. “You’ll still have your millions of adoring fans. And in two months time you’ll be off touring the world again, and all anyone will remember is how good you looked in that dress.”

 

Both of Pippa’s eyes are open now. “You think I look good in this dress?”

 

Hecate wonders if turning bright red under all this green paint makes her face go purple.

 

_‘Act One Beginners to the stage, please. Miss Pentangle to the stage.’_

 

The intercom system crackles to life and Hecate is saved, as Pippa blows out a breath and peels herself away from the wall. “Oh, Christ.”

 

“I’ll walk you through,” Hecate tells her, and Pippa clutches at her elbow with shaking hands. Gwen sticks her elaborately be-wigged head out of her dressing room as they pass to give Pippa a wink and a thumbs up before she ducks back in to finish off her Morrible makeup, and within a few seconds Hecate is watching two stage techs attach Pippa to the rig of her filigree bubble as the overture blasts out in front of the curtains, her fingers white-knuckled around the stem of her wand.

 

“Any last words of encouragement?” Pippa mutters to Hecate through gritted teeth as they hear the chorus come in, and Dimity starts to gesture for the bubble to ascend. “Don’t fuck it up,” Hecate says bluntly, and the shock unhinges Pippa’s jaw, and hopefully makes her forget her panic completely, as Hecate smirks at her and she’s raised into the darkness.

 

Hecate moves into the wings to stand beside Esme, lounging in Nessa’s chair at stage left.

 

‘ _Look it’s Glinda!’_

 

“How is she?” Esme whispers, and Hecate smiles as she hears Pippa’s voice ring out, high and confident across the auditorium, betraying no trace of her nerves as the crowd loses its mind at her appearance. “I think she’ll be fine,” she replies drily, and soon it’s ‘ _Is it true you were her friend?’_ and Pippa’s talking about crossing paths, and Hecate crosses the leg of the stage, and they’re away.

 

***

 

They walk down side by side at the end, and Pippa’s smile could light up the theatre on its own. Hecate can barely take her eyes off her. The crowd roars its approval from its feet, and somewhere in the circle, much to Hecate’s consternation, a teenage voice screams “ _WE LOVE YOU, PIPPA!”_ Pippa reaches across almost unconsciously to take Hecate’s hand in the traditional manner as they bow together, and Hecate can feel the tremble still, see her breathing just a little laboured, even as she beams so widely out into the house that her face is in danger of splitting clean in half.

 

The curtain comes down and the lights go up, and Pippa is mobbed by the rest of the cast, who unceremoniously shunt Hecate aside to get to her. Nathaniel is congratulating her loudly, and Esme has her pulled into a half-hug, and Ada rushes onstage, clapping her hands to offer her felicitations. Hecate, tired and already getting headache-y as her adrenaline wears off, heads backstage to de-verdigrate. As she glances back at the excitable knot of actors, she catches Pippa watching her. The blonde smiles tentatively, raising her eyebrows at Hecate in silent question. Hecate, fighting the urge to duck her head and flush, nods and smiles back.

 

Pippa finds her in her dressing room half an hour later, when she’s well on the way to returning to a normal human colour. “We’re going to the pub,” she proclaims hopefully. “To celebrate my not fucking-it-up. Coming?” Hecate feels the corners of her mouth pull up in a grin as Pippa bats her earlier words back at her.

 

“Are you allowed out in public?” she drawls, scrubbing paint out of her eyebrows. Pippa shrugs.

 

“Chris’ll be there,” she remarks, referring to the extremely large man who seems to appear out of the shadows unannounced whenever Pippa is too close to the hoi polloi. He’d startled Hecate the first time he loomed into view, but she’s learned to ignore him now - a talent she reserves for most of the male species. She hums a vague acquiescence, and Pippa looks pleased. It’s nice, this easiness between them tonight, when they’ve spent most of their previous time together nipping and glaring and trying not to stare at one another’s tantalisingly soft curves and pretty, pink mouths.

 

That last one might just be her, to be fair.

 

She straightens up and drops another hapless, ruined towel - the true unacknowledged victims of the Wicked Witch of the West - into the laundry basket in the corner. Pippa’s looking at her expectantly, and Hecate shuffles her feet a little, wondering if Pippa’s planning on watching her change, and what she’s going to do about it if she is. “What? I’ll just be a minute.”

 

“I can take your wig back along, if you like,” Pippa offers amicably, and Hecate’s forehead creases in confusion.

 

“Sorry?”

 

“Your wig,” Pippa gestures at Hecate’s head. “I can run it back along to wardrobe for you.”

 

Hecate glances at the mirror, as if to confirm with herself that she is definitely not, in fact, unexpectedly wearing a wig. “That’s my hair,” she says, confused. Pippa’s mouth drops open.

 

“ _Seriously?”_

 

Hecate lifts a hand to her temple self-consciously. “Yes?”

 

Pippa abandons loitering by the door and floats into the room as if pulled magnetically, her eyes wide and disbelieving. “You’re kidding!”

 

“No?”

 

Pippa’s fingers reach up as if of their own volition and run through the length of Hecate’s dark waves, her expression mesmerised. Hecate’s always liked her hair, a gift from her mother, jet-black and thick and cascading almost to her waist. It hadn’t occurred to her that, outside of her Elphaba garb, Pippa’s never actually seen it down. She tends to keep it up and out of her face in the elaborately braided bun that disguises its length rather effectively. No wonder Pippa had thought it was part of her costume. Her throat goes completely dry as Pippa’s fingers trail through the ends, and when she looks back at Hecate her eyes are a little unfocused, and Hecate could - quite unironically - melt into a puddle on the floor.

 

“Oh,” Pippa breathes, softly.

 

“I need to get out of this dress,” says Hecate, and Pippa’s eyes widen even as Hecate could cheerfully swallow her own tongue. “To get changed! I...I need to get changed.”

 

“Of course,” Pippa steps back and Hecate could swear her cheeks are rather pinker than they were a second ago. “I’ll leave you to it. See you at the stage door?” Hecate can only nod, and when she does eventually meet her cast mates and they step outside, Pippa is instantly swarmed by dozens of fans clamouring for her to sign their programmes or their photos or their bodies, and Large Chris is manhandling her away even as she wrestles with him to sweep her pink signature over just one more proffered piece of paper. Egbert’s shouting “We’ll get you down the pub!”, and Hecate finds herself bundled into a blacked-out Range Rover, on the way to some low-key, celeb-hangout bar in Soho she’s never heard of and almost certainly couldn’t get into on her own.

 

She spends a mildly hungover Sunday in her flat with Morgana, and Pippa sends her a WhatsApp message at two in the afternoon of her languishing across a couch that probably cost more that Hecate’s annual income, bleary eyed and with last night's mascara still smudged across her lashes and utterly beautiful, with the caption _Lemons and Melons and Pears my arse_. On Monday night Pippa greets her with an unusually shy smile as they pass in the corridor on their way to get ready. This time, right before the clock doors slide apart and reveal them for their final bow, Pippa grabs Hecate’s hand tightly in her own and squeezes, and then drags her downstage towards the thundering applause.

 

***

 

As predicted, Pippa’s two-month run is easily sold out, and the crowds pack the theatre every night to whistle and cheer for her. There’s a few reviews in the papers, mostly full of glowing praise for Pippa’s ‘sparkling personality’ and ‘captivating movement’, and how she provides a bright, shiny counterpoint to Hecate’s ‘severe’ Wicked Witch. They’re not all exclusively complimentary of course, and Hecate passes Pippa’s dressing room early one evening to see her contentedly shredding a sheet of newsprint into her waste bin. “ _Daily Mail,”_ Pippa offers blithely to Hecate’s lifted brow, and Hecate makes a face in understanding. She’d already seen the brief ‘critic’s review’, which consisted largely of a picture of Pippa from some event or another in a short, tight black dress and lashings of eyeliner under the heading ‘Is She a Good Witch or a Bad Witch?’, and a suggestive sentence or two about her and Nathaniel Nightshade just subtle enough to avoid full-on libel (Pippa shows her an amused text from Narcissus, currently doing a _Rocky Horror_ tour, that reads ‘Hear ur shagging my hband now, and it has to b true because I #readitintheDailyMail’ followed by a series of emojis that Hecate’s pretty sure she’d rather not parse.)

 

“It’s constant,” Pippa complains later, as they’re shrugging on cardigans and jackets and Hecate’s glancing furtively at the door to try and estimate how large a crowd is gathering out there. “I can’t look at a bloke without the media thinking we’re having a some sort of affair.” She sighs, and pulls her hair out of her collar, and looks shrewdly at Hecate. “I bet they’ve never written an article accusing you of bonking all your leading men.”

 

Nathaniel laughs so hard he nearly chokes, and Hecate tries her best to set him on fire with her glare. He wheezes, wipes his eyes, and giggles “Aw, mate,” at Pippa, ruffling her hair as he walks past like she’s a small child who’s just said something adorably silly. Pippa’s nose scrunches up in confusion, and Hecate sweeps over to the exit, the tips of her ears burning.

 

Once the pressure of the initial shows is over, they find their rhythm quickly, and crackle together on stage night-after-night, as Pippa waves her wand and stamps her feet, and Hecate sneers and swirls and melts and melts and melts. They fire quick messages to each other during the day, dissecting their performances, or yesterday’s audience, or swapping funny stories about their colleagues, and they even meet up for lunch in Shoreditch one Sunday, huddled into a corner table where there’s less chance of being recognised. Pippa’s lacing their fingers together now as they run down for their bows, and for the first time Hecate matches her grin for grin out into the audience. Gwen remarks in passing that it’s good to see Hecate enjoying herself again, and she shrugs it off and refuses to think about it too closely.

 

And then suddenly six weeks have gone past, and Hecate arrives for work to find Ada in her dressing room once again. “New Glinda,” she says matter-of-factly, showing her a headshot of some Australian actress fresh off the antipodean touring company. She’s been playing the part for months so she knows it forwards and backwards and inside-out, and now she just needs to come in for a few rehearsals to get used to the stage and the set and the...well, Hecate. She feels a lead weight settle in her stomach.

 

She knows she’s off with Pippa that night, and on the Saturday after, and sees the hurt expression that flickers across the other woman’s face when she’s short and snippy and replies to her questions in monosyllables. It’s better to start putting separation procedures in place now, Hecate tells herself. Pippa was never going to stay long, and it was stupid to get used to her and to enjoy they way they worked together, when she was just using this as a platform to get her name bandied about a bit before she announces her new album or her next tour or whatever it is she’ll be doing when she swans off into the sunset and leaves Hecate behind in the cool, green light of the theatre. Her hand is loose in Pippa’s that night as they take their bow, and she sleeps badly after the show.

 

On Sunday morning, her phone rings stupidly early, and she blinks groggily at the clock as she raises it to her ear and croaks out, “Hello?”

 

“I need to get out of London for a bit, so I’m driving up to the Cotswolds for the day and you’re coming with me.”

 

“Am I?”

 

“Yes, and we’ll probably do a bit of walking so wear something sensible. And bring a jacket.”

 

Hecate’s not sure she owns anything that’s _not_ sensible, but she rolls out of bed and into a pair of comfortable trousers and a light jumper (black, of course), and braids her hair back and digs out a pair of walking boots she probably hasn’t worn in about eight years. She put out food for a leery Morgana, who’s watching her from on top of a bookcase, and hears a car horn beep once outside her flat. There’s no sign of Large Chris, so she slips into the front of Pippa’s Audi (dark blue, mercifully) and Pippa peels off the minute she fastens her seatbelt, as if to deny her any opportunity to change her mind.

 

“What’s all this in aid of?” Hecate asks after a tense five minutes or so, fidgeting with the hem of her jacket.

 

“I told you,” Pippa shoots back, “I felt like I needed to get out of London for a few hours. I though a bit of time in the country would do me some good.”

 

“Yes, but why am _I_ here?”

 

“I thought it would probably do you some good as well.”

 

They’re quiet for a few more minutes. “It’s been a bit full-on,” Pippa continues eventually.

 

“I’m used to it.”

 

“Believe it or not, so am I,” Pippa snaps, indicating left. “My life’s not all lounging about on Ed Sheeran’s yacht drinking French Martinis off the coast of Monaco you know. I actually work bloody hard.”

 

“Ed Sheeran has a yacht?”

 

“I don’t bloody know! Probably!” Pippa scowls at the road as she overtakes the car ahead of them and pulls back in. Hecate shifts uncomfortably and folds her arms as another silence stretches out.

 

“You know, I didn’t think that you _don’t_ work hard,” she says haltingly after a while. Pippa snorts derisively.

 

“But you didn’t think I would cope with _Wicked_ , did you? You decided I was just some ten-a-penny pop-singer who wouldn’t be able to handle the pace. You didn’t even want me in this cast.” It’s not a question, and Hecate hesitates. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

 

Embarrassed at being called out in so blunt a manner, Hecate’s voice rises shrilly. “Why is this all coming up now?”

 

“Well, why have you been in such a godawful snit with me all weekend?”

 

“I have not!”

 

“You have so!”

 

“I have _not!”_

 

_“You have!”_

 

“Well what does it _matter_?” Hecate explodes, waspish and defensive. “You’re finishing next Saturday anyway!”

 

“ _So_?”

 

“So then we don’t have to see each other ever again, do we!”

 

Her voice crashes into the air, reverberates off the dashboard, and slams into them both with a force that winds her. Pippa’s face goes blank and she stares straight ahead, and Hecate wants to claw her way out of her own skin, retrieve the raw, splintered words and stuff them all back inside where they belong. They car is filled with the sound of them breathing, raggedly, in and out and in.

 

“Oh,” Pippa says after an excruciating moment. “I see.”

 

Hecate looks fixedly at the floor, her heart pounding almost as painfully as her head, her larynx feeling like it’s being crushed slowly in a vice as heat suffuses her chest and cheeks. She chances a glance up at long last: and, well, now she knows she’s going to hell, because she’s made Pippa Pentangle cry. Her lungs constrict in regret and words scrabble at the base of her throat, trapped with no way out. Pippa won’t look at her, as the tears spill through her bottom lashes and wind their way down her cheeks to splash messily against her cotton shirt. Finally, she swallows, the noise absurdly loud in the oppressive silence

 

“I’ll take you home.”

 

“What?” Hecate responds, voice small.

 

“I’ll take you home,” Pippa repeats flatly. “I shouldn’t have dragged you out here in the first place. I don’t want you to feel you need to _see_ _me_ more than you absolutely have to.” Hecate cringes at the sting.

 

“I wouldn’t have come if I hadn’t wanted to,” she says meekly. When this elicits no answer from her companion, she sighs. “Pippa, stop. Pull over.”

 

They haven’t even made it past Regent’s Park yet, and Pippa slips down a side road and miraculously finds an empty space to stop the car. She pulls on the handbrake and switches off the engine, and sits with her hands folded in her lap, throat working, still not meeting Hecate’s eyes.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

Pippa shrugs, dully. Hecate feels her nails digging into her palms.

 

“I am. I’m...I’m sorry.”

 

Pippa gazes distantly out of the window at the buildings around them, sucking in a deep breath through her nose. “It’s just,” she says, “I thought-”

 

“You thought…?” Hecate prods gently when she trails off. Pippa shrugs again, subdued in a way that makes Hecate’s chest ache.

 

“I thought we were friends.” And her chest cracks open, and her heart, unbound, falls at Pippa’s feet.

 

“You did?”

 

Pippa’s face crumples a little again and Hecate feels her own eyes filling up, and she doesn’t even think as reaches across the central console and pries Pippa’s hands apart to fold one in her own. “Pippa-”

 

“I feel like a bloody idiot, now,” Pippa chokes out wetly, her head still turned away and god, this is a mess, Hecate thinks, mind reeling. Barely three months ago, she was rolling her eyes at the TV at this woman, wearing a designer dress and five inch heels to deep-fry goat’s cheese or quails eggs or something on _Saturday Kitchen_ , while hunting for the remote to switch her over to a _Poirot_ repeat on ITV2, and now...

 

“You _are,”_ Hecate manages, her voice rough and unsteady. Pippa finally looks at her.

 

“An idiot?”

 

“My friend.” They regard one another, a touch cautiously, as they both try and regain composure. “At least, I’d like it. If you were.”

 

Pippa chews on her lower lip, still looking unconvinced, and Hecate forges on despite her impulse to drop her hand and flee the car and get away from all these complicated emotions that are pushing their way through her carefully constructed personal boundaries. “And I have been...brusque, the past few days. You’re absolutely right.”

 

Pippa pulls her hand away, but only to swipe at her eyes and sniffle, and run her fingers through her hair to shake it away from her face as the tension starts to leave her body in a gradual loosening of her limbs.

 

“Why?”

 

It’s Hecate’s turn to shrug, but it’s self-deprecating and abashed. “I suppose I thought once your run was up, that would be it. That you’d go back to your normal life and forget all about us. I’m not good with...with change, and it’s quite rare that I get along with someone in the first place, and I’ve enjoyed working with you, but I know how busy you must get-” She’s arrested mid-ramble by Pippa’s hand sliding delicately back into hers, and she lifts her gaze from where it’s dropped back down to the car mat. “You’ll hardly want me hanging about, getting in the way.”

 

Pippa’s brown eyes, red-rimmed as they are, are deep and warm and infinite.

 

“I’ve seen everything you’ve ever been in,” she says, quietly. “Since _Three Tall Women._ Whenever I could _._ Everything.” And Hecate tries desperately to read her expression, and her voice, and her eyes, as her heartbeat thuds in her ears and they sit, utterly still and staring, for the longest moments of Hecate’s life.

 

Rain patters abruptly against the windscreen and breaks whatever spell had been forming inside the car. They pull apart, each a little shaky, and throats are cleared and eyes wiped and hair tucked back behind ears as they resettle and let the weight of the morning evaporate between them.

 

“Bugger,” Pippa frowns at the weather, not untypical for April, or any other month in the British Isles, really. “We can still go if you like? It’ll probably go off.”

 

“Or it’ll snow,” Hecate retorts and they both snort, the laughter erasing the last of the tension in the air.

 

“Well, if it doesn’t, we can at least have a nice drive and stop at a pub for lunch,” Pippa declares decisively, and starts up the engine again.

 

It’s just shy of two hours to Burford, where Pippa announces they’re heading, and she tells Hecate she can pick the music. Hecate refuses to entertain anything from Pippa’s playlist, so she’s instructed to dig a USB cable out of the glove compartment and plug in her own bloody phone, then. She does, and they listen to Fleetwood Mac and Kate Bush and Biffy Clyro on shuffle in companionable silence, until Hecate’s iTunes betrays her utterly, and the first few notes of Bowie’s _Modern Love_ bounce out of the speakers. Except, it’s not Bowie’s _Modern Love_ , it’s Pippa’s cover version from her eponymously-titled last album, and Hecate dives for the phone just as Pippa realises it.

 

“Dimity got hold of my phone and downloaded all your albums!”

 

Pippa crows all the way to the Cotswolds.

 

***

 

The rain does go off, after all, and they spent a pleasantly idle afternoon wandering around craft shops and antique stores and having an afternoon tea in one of the little bakeries that populate the medieval town. At some point, Pippa takes her hand to direct her attention to the intricate carvings on an 18th century armoire and doesn’t let go, and Hecate allows herself to be pulled around happily. No one recognises Pippa, with her plain button-down shirt and naturally curly hair and no makeup on, or if they do, they’re far too polite to say anything, this not being London after all. They wander along the river for a mile or so, and stop to sit and take in the views, and Hecate ends up with Pippa’s head in her lap as she leans back on her forearms and tilts her winter pale face up to the sun. It’s all so ridiculously idyllic that she should find it unbearable, but instead she relaxes more and more as the afternoon wears on, voice less stilted and smiling more easily. They talk a bit about work, and a bit about themselves, and a lot about nothing at all, and by the time the sun is tracking back towards the horizon, this morning seems a world away, like they’ve calmed the storm that was threatening to erupt between them and send them both down, and it’s smooth sailing from here on out. Hecate’s not naive enough to believe the calm will last forever - they’re actors, after all - but she relishes it nevertheless.

 

They retreat to a quintessentially English inn for dinner, where Pippa insists Hecate indulges in at least _one_ glass of wine, and the owner chats to them genially about their day and asks if they’re tourists. When they explain they’re just day-trippers, he enthuses about some of the local sights they should come back to see, and he and Hecate end up chatting at length about the gardens at Blenheim Palace. When he clears their table and promises to come back with coffee, Pippa raises her eyebrow at Hecate in unspoken question.

 

“I had a girlfriend once who was studying architectural history. She was very into the gardens and parks of Capability Brown,” Hecate explains offhandedly, surprised when Pippa’s eyes widen almost comically and her mouth opens in a _moue_ of astonishment. Then Pippa drops her head to her hands and groans, laughing embarrassedly. “Oh my god, _that’s_ why Nathaniel’s been taking the piss!”

 

“Excuse me?”

 

“Oh, you remember! When I said that thing about you and your leading men; Nate’s never bloody dropped it. He keeps coming past my dressing room and saying things like ‘ _I’m snogging her for all I’m worth every night, babe! I’m doing my best, but I don’t think it’s working!’_ I knew he was taking the mick somehow, but-”

 

They’re interrupted as their coffee arrives, and Pippa spoons three sugars into her cappuccino and seems in no hurry to conclude her previous sentence, while Hecate feels like a thousand needles are suddenly under her skin. Pippa stirs her coffee lazily and takes a sip before she notices Hecate’s snapped back into her usual rigid posture, and she frowns. “What?”

 

It takes Hecate a minute to grit the words out without sounding accusatory - she really, really doesn’t want to end up in another fight with Pippa today, but she has to know: “Is it a problem?”

 

“Eh?”

 

“My...” and for god’s sake, she’s a woman in her mid-thirties in the arts who’s in _musical theatre_ , why is this so difficult for her, still, “...orientation.”

 

“Hardly!” Pippa exclaims, placing her coffee cup back on its saucer with a _clink_. “I’ve dated men and women. I mean, I haven’t dated anyone in forever which is why the papers haven’t had anything to report recently, and my management doesn’t splash it about, but it’s not a secret. I’ve mentioned it in interviews and things. There was a bit of a hoo-hah about it when I first came on the scene but that died down fairly quickly, and they were on to the next thing. My gaydar’s atrocious though. That’s probably what Nathaniel thought was so flipping funny. He knows about you, too, obviously.”

 

It’s Hecate’s turn to look confounded, and she feels like the ground under her feet today is shifting and heaving and she can’t get a steady footing for more than five minutes. “Well, yes,” she manages. “At least, he knows I find him about as appealing as that wall,” she nods at the stonework behind Pippa’s head, “although without any of the intrinsic charm or value.” Pippa lets out a peal of laughter, but her eyes turn serious.

 

“So, you’re not out?”

 

“I’m not... _not_ out,” Hecate mumbles, playing with the handle of her coffee mug. “I’m not exactly... _in_ , I just…”

 

“Don’t want to talk about it?” And Hecate knows Pippa is giving her an opportunity right now to move back onto safer territory, and she’ll change the subject in a minute if Hecate indicates she wants her to. But Hecate doesn’t want her to, not really.

 

“Like you said, it’s not a secret,” she says, waving her hands vaguely at her coffee. “It just doesn’t come up. I don’t care if people _know_ , I just hate...having to tell them. It always feels like, like such a big _thing_ , you know?” She lays her hands flat on the table. “Like it always has to be an announcement. It’s not just once and it’s over with, and it doesn’t get any easier the more you do it. Or it doesn’t for me, anyway. You just never know how people are going to react, and people think ‘oh, she must have so much confidence, though, she’s an _actor_ ’, and they forget that, actually, some of us spend almost our whole day pretending to be someone _else_ for a _reason_.” Pippa’s nodding sympathetically, and Hecate blows out a breath. “Part of me I wishes _I_ could just announce it to the papers and get it over with _,_ but somehow I don’t think anyone’s going to care as much about me.”

 

She sits back, exhausted, and a little shocked at her sudden outpouring of honesty when she’s never voiced these thoughts to another person in her life. She’s not sure she’s even fully formulated them herself, until now. Pippa seems to understand that somehow, and she reaches across the table and laces her fingers with Hecate’s the way she’s done every night for weeks.

 

“Thank you. For telling me.”

 

The landlord comes back over to see if they need anything else, and Pippa makes no move to let her go, even as the man asks them politely if they’re working tomorrow, and what is it that they do? and Pippa explains that they’re both in a show, although she’s generally a singer, and the penny finally drops. They get away with just the one selfie for his daughter, and then they’re back in the car and Hecate - to her chagrin - falls asleep almost immediately, lulled by the wine and the relief and the gentle hum of the car until they’re almost back in Hackney. When Pippa drops her at her flat, she presses a kiss to Hecate’s cheek that lingers just long enough for Hecate to want to ask her to come upstairs just so she can wrap her arms around her and fall back asleep with the scent of her hair and the softness of her skin against her, but her better angels prevail and she wishes her a goodnight, and falls into bed with the memory of Pippa’s gentle smile.

 

***

 

Despite her desperate hope to the contrary, the next week flies in, as Pippa gets ready to wrap up her run. They’re all shy smiles and brushing hands this week, standing arms pressed together in the wings or backstage, and there’s a jittery, delicious sort of energy between the two of them now, in the wake of their weekend revelations; a conspiratorial spirit, although if anyone notices it they aren't inclined to say. Hecate channels it into her performance, and she feels a sort of vigour than she hasn't truly had since her first six months in the part, and she and Pippa are electric on the stage

 

There’s excitement on Tuesday when Dimity and Julie announce their engagement out of the blue - although, it turns out, it is only out of the blue for Hecate, as they’ve apparently been together for years and everyone else knows this, even Pippa. It’s almost as if it would behoove her, Ada says with a sort of irritated fondness, to take a bit more interest in her colleague’s lives once in a while. Gwen sighs wistfully as they walk back to the dressing room corridor after the announcement and gazes up at the ceiling.

 

“It’s like a magnet for couples, this show isn’t it,” she says, in faraway tone. “Narcissus and Nathaniel, me and Algie, Julie and Dimity, and now…”

 

“And now?” Hecate questions, dangerously.

 

“Esme and that boy who does Boq,” Gwen replies, quite guilessly. “Whatshisname. Charlie. I hear they’re stepping out.” She glances over at Hecate nonchalantly, although Hecate can _see_ the glint in the old bat’s eyes, “Why? Who did you think I was going to say?” and she disappears into her dressing room before Hecate can form a retort.

 

On Thursday, the sodding bubble packs in an hour before curtain up, and there’s a frantic scramble backstage as the techs fight to get it working again. “I couldn’t just have this _one_ week,” Dimity laments loudly from centrestage, “Just this _one_ nice week for Dimity, thanks universe.” It shudders back into life with barely fifteen minutes to spare and then it’s another scramble to get everything back on track and persuade a dubious Pippa into the rig.

 

“If I die in this thing,” she tells Hecate solemnly, as she’s fastened in and they start gesturing for her to go up, “know that I have loved you.” And of course Hecate knows that’s she’s joking, but it still sends a dizzy little thrill through her, and that on top of her pre-show adrenaline conspires to make her feel...distracted, through the performance, and when Nate clutches her to him during _As Long As You’re Mine_ , it’s certainly not Fiyero she’s thinking about.

 

But Friday comes, and Pippa creeps into her dressing room after the show to sit forlornly in a chair and watch her as she reveals the porcelain skin hiding under the layers of green bodypaint. “This time tomorrow it’ll be all over,” she muses sadly, and fiddles with the fringe on the light shawl she’s thrown over her shoulders. Hecate swallows the lump in her throat. “What are you going to do without me?” She meets Hecate’s gaze in the reflection of her mirror and smiles wanly as if hoping to stress that she’s teasing.

 

“I don’t know,” Hecate replies honestly, and Pippa’s chin trembles a bit. It’s absurd, Hecate thinks: she had worked with Anna for nearly a year, and she had been a bit thrown by her leaving, but she hadn’t felt so completely lost at the prospect, not the way she does at the idea of going on on Monday without Pippa.

 

 _You weren’t hopelessly in love with Anna,_ that little voice in the back of her head gloats, and she has no real choice but to admit that it’s right.

 

Ten weeks ago she would have scoffed contemptuously at anyone who had even dared posit the possibility of her falling head over heels for Pippa Pentangle. Now she barely remembers what it felt like not to love her.

 

On Saturday, after the matinee, Pippa is teary and glum, and frustrated with herself for it. “Oh, for goodness sake,” she growls, tipping her head back as she tries to contain it. “This is stupid. I’ve only been here five minutes. You must think I’m pathetic.”

 

“Of course I don’t,” Hecate soothes. She knows what it’s like going in to a final performance of a part that’s special, wanting to hold on to every moment and remember it and wring every ounce of joy out of it, while at the same time grieving each line as it passes your lips for the last time and is gone. Pippa sighs.

 

“It’s just, I’ve so loved doing this, you know? I’ve been so excited for it, and nervous about it, for months and months, and it just seems to have gone by in a flash. I just...I really wanted to make an impression with it, and...and _do well_. I wanted them to see I was _good_ at it. And now it’s all done.”

 

“There’ll be other shows,” Hecate says with quiet confidence, and Pippa sniffs, and smiles a watery smile at her.

 

“But they won’t be _this_ show.”

 

“I dare say they’d take you on the tour.”

 

“You know what I mean.”

 

Hecate smiles back at her. “I know what you mean.” Pippa dabs at her nose with a tissue, carefully trying to preserve her stage makeup.

 

“And if you want my opinion,” Hecate continues after a moment, “you weren’t just _good_ at it: you were _extraordinary._ I know we didn’t exactly get off on the right foot, but I really did think that, after that first rehearsal. If you don’t mind me saying so, I was...I was impressed.”

 

Pippa’s eyes are wide and wet again. “You have no idea how much that means to me, coming from you” she says, softly. “Especially now that I know you so well.”

 

They’re interrupted by one of the dressers looking for Pippa, and they smile at one another as Hecate heads back to her own room. Before long, beginners are being called to the stage and Hecate’s limbs feel heavy as she slips into the shadow of the wings to watch Pippa ascend to the rafters for the last time.

 

The crowd is utterly Pippa’s tonight, knowing as they do that this is her finale performance, and she has them in the palm of her hand from the minute she arrives in the spotlight in a cloud of bubbles. Hecate throws everything into their moments together, clutching her hands before _One Short Day_ , clinging to her a little longer than usual before _Defying Gravity_ , and before she knows it, she’s handing Pippa the Grimmerie with a tremble in her hands, and Pippa’s telling her she’s had so many friends, but only one that mattered.

 

‘ _I’ve heard it said,_

_that people come into our lives,_

_for a reason…’_

 

They don’t take their eyes off one another for the whole song, their voices swooping and soaring through the auditorium and building to a crescendo that raises the hairs on the back of even Hecate’s neck. She presses her hand to her heart, touches Pippa’s shoulder, closes her eyes briefly as Pippa taps the brim of her pointy hat and hears the shake in her own voice as she sings _I do believe I have been changed for the better,_ and watches Pippa fail to fight back tears.

 

_‘And because I knew you,_

_I have been changed,_

_for good.’_

 

The audience is on its feet and roaring its appreciation before their voices have even faded from the air, and Pippa’s arms are around Hecate as she laughs and sobs into her neck. Hecate holds on tightly and squeezes her eyes shut against her own tears, and when she opens them again she can see the rest of the principle cast assembled in the wings, clapping furiously. Gwen’s wiping her eyes and Nate’s grinning like an idiot. Somewhere between a second and forever, they finally let one another go.

 

As she must, Hecate melts, and Pippa announces her demise to the assembled Ozians, and the show brings itself round full circle until they’re standing behind the clock doors once again, holding one another’s hands. Hecate squeezes tightly, and Pippa looks at her with watery eyes and mouths ‘ _thank you’_ , and when the scenery slides open and the crowd screams for Pippa, they walk down side-by-side without a sliver of distance between them

 

They take their first bow together, then with the company, and then Hecate steps to the side and sweeps her arm out to present Pippa solo to the audience, and it whistles and cheers and stamps its feet as she beams luminously out into the darkness. Egbert strides on stage again with a bunch of flowers that nearly obscures his entire person, but before he can get to them, Pippa reaches a hand out for Hecate again. She tugs her back in to her, and turns her towards her and as their eyes meet there’s a silent request in Pippa’s gaze and Hecate knows - _she knows, she knows, she knows_ \- what Pippa’s asking, and her heart lurches and her breath catches and she gives a tiny, almost imperceptible nod as her eyes fill up again and she gives in to Pippa’s wide, breathtaking smile.

 

In retrospect, Hecate thinks sometime afterwards, it’s a miracle the theatre doesn’t come down on top of them.

 

Pippa places a hand delicately on either side of her face, and kisses her, and the noise rises to a level Hecate hadn’t thought was physically possible. The world falls away as Pippa’s lips press tenderly against hers, and Hecate’s hands drop to Pippa’s waist to the sounds of hoots and shrieks and whoops. When it carries on for just long enough for even the more obtuse members of the audience, and the cast for that matter, to realise that this is not just a totally-platonic theatre-darlings’ exuberant goodbye, it feels like the walls and the floor are going to vibrate apart. They part giddy, punch-drunk and elated, and Pippa whirls them both back round for a final bow.

 

When the curtain comes down between them and the near-hysterical crowd, the rest of the cast descends upon them ebulliently, although this time instead of being pushed aside in favour of her Glinda, Hecate finds herself squashed right in the middle of the happy, giggling knot.

 

“Christ, you know how to go out with a bang!” Nate is exclaiming at Pippa, as everyone separates enough to let Hecate breathe, and Pippa’s grinning brightly at her. The momentousness of the last few hours hits Hecate all at once, and she feels her knees go weak, but Gwen is suddenly there with a supporting hand on her lower back, and a wink and a smirk at Hecate when she turns over her shoulder. Egbert is still standing with armfuls of bouquet, and Hecate hears a bewildered Ada somewhere say “So, _not_ a publicity thing?”

 

The chattering and the laughing and the press of bodies becomes too much and she retreats back to her dressing room, catching Pippa’s eye and gesturing with her head so she knows she’s not fled and abandoned her in a panic. She begins the ritual of de-Elphiesising, wiping her face and hands clean and brushing out her long hair. They’ve got the bar again for an hour tonight, for Pippa’s leaving drinks, and Hecate marvels at how long ago it seems since they stood on opposite sides of the room at Anna’s do, trying hard to avoid starting another squabble. There’s a knock on her door, and Pippa appears. Hecate pauses with the brush still halfway through her hair.

 

“Hi,” Pippa says softly.

 

“Hi.”

 

They spend a minute just smiling dopily at each other, until Pippa’s eyes crinkle and she moves into the room. “I know you were being facetious when you said you’d like to take an advert out in the paper, but I’m not sure we can avoid it now.”

 

“You did just snog me in front of two and a half thousand people.”

 

“That wasn’t a snog!” Pippa laughs. “I thought I was very restrained.” Hecate can’t even be embarrassed by the undoubtedly goofy smile she knows is splitting her face. “You didn’t seem to mind though?” Hecate hears the tiny creep of self-doubt in Pippa’s voice and sees it behind her eyes, and she rises and crosses over to her, and takes her hands.

 

“It was a bit unexpected.”

 

“Was it?” Pippa wrinkles her nose. “I thought I’d been rather obvious.”

 

And Hecate know it’s far too soon to say _I love_ _you_ , so she does the next best thing and kisses her, gently, feeling Pippa sigh against her lips as she loses herself in the feel of her, the quiet settling around them as they stand together.

 

“How about tonight,” Pippa murmurs as they part, separating only enough to allow her to speak, “we go up for a drink and endure what is bound to be a thorough ribbing from everyone else in the cast, and then you let me take you home with me, and tomorrow we can plan our second date.”

 

“ _Second_ date?”

 

“Mm-hm,” Pippa affirms, smiling devilishly. “After this I’m counting last Sunday as a win.” Hecate huffs in amusement.

 

“I can’t,” she says, and amends quickly as she sees Pippa’s face fall, “I have to feed my cat.”

 

Pippa stares at her for a minute, then bursts out laughing merrily, and Hecate looks a little put out.  

 

“Oh god,” Pippa gasps, draping her arms around Hecate’s neck. “Please, tell me you’ve gone full method and you have a _black cat._ ”

 

“I had her before I was cast!” she replies indignantly, and Pippa laughs harder, and Hecate shuts her up by kissing her again.

 

“Then how about _you_ take _me_ home, and you can introduce me,” Pippa manages eventually when they part for breath again, flush-faced and still smiling recklessly. Hecate agrees to the compromise.

 

It’s not all going to be this easy, she knows, as she stands at the bar shortly afterwards with another terrible red wine and watches Pippa beam and sparkle her way around the room, giving and receiving hugs and kisses and promises to keep in touch. They’re both workaholics and temperamental and a little bit dramatic, and soon enough Pippa will have to travel, and so might she, and they’ve still a lot to learn about each other outside of this little, well, bubble they’ve found themselves in. But as Pippa returns to her side and warns New Glinda to take care of her, she finds she’s dizzy and excited at the prospect of finding out, and she laces her fingers with Pippa - their last time as a Good Witch and a Bad Witch - and smiles.

 

Who knows. Maybe they’ll learn to fly.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Random Fact: It’s still true for some productions that you have to be on-stage for a certain amount of time in order to be paid the full performance rate for that night. For the ‘Wicked’ tour, that time is apparently roughly halfway through 'What Is This Feeling?', because I once worked a production where the Elphaba was incredibly ill, but still battled out onto stage until Galinda’s solo section, whereupon she rushed into the wings and tagged in her understudy (who every night has to stand there in full-green paint waiting to see if Elphaba will accidentally fall through a trapdoor or something [see: Shoshana Bean]). In this case, it was so seamlessly done that half of us didn’t even notice Elphie had undergone a complete head transplant until the end of the dance. 
> 
> Theatre, you guys. Theatre.


End file.
